Doesn’t the surgeon get any credit?

As the Detroit Free Press reported, Kelly Stafford, the wife of the Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford (parents of three), just had 12 hours of brain surgery to remove a benign tumor impinging on her cranial nerves.

Stafford announced on Instagram earlier in April that doctors found an acoustic neuroma, or a benign tumor, resting on her cranial nerves after she complained of dizziness earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Stafford was admitted for a surgery that she said was supposed to take six hours.

It actually took twelve hours, as there was a complication—an abnormal vein. Fortunately, as she wrote in her Instagram post below, the surgeon knew how to deal with the complication, as he’d written a paper about it.

“Now I am home and learning my new norm,” Stafford wrote Sunday. “It’ll take some time, but I really just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for all your support, thoughts and prayers. It means more than y’all will ever know.”

I’m very glad that she’s fine and managed to have a surgeon with fortuitous expertise in the complication, but notice below that the surgeon is neither named nor gets any credit: Stafford says “That’s truly God’s work.” If I were the surgeon, I’d feel a bit deflated!

I won’t mention the prayers. . .

This reminds me of Daniel Dennett’s wonderful essay about his hospitalization for an arterial issue, “Thank goodness!” Read it if you haven’t. An excerpt:

Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say “Thank goodness!” this is not merely a euphemism for “Thank God!” (We atheists don’t believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now.

To whom, then, do I owe a debt of gratitude? To the cardiologist who has kept me alive and ticking for years, and who swiftly and confidently rejected the original diagnosis of nothing worse than pneumonia. To the surgeons, neurologists, anesthesiologists, and the perfusionist, who kept my systems going for many hours under daunting circumstances. To the dozen or so physician assistants, and to nurses and physical therapists and x-ray technicians and a small army of phlebotomists so deft that you hardly know they are drawing your blood, and the people who brought the meals, kept my room clean, did the mountains of laundry generated by such a messy case, wheel-chaired me to x-ray, and so forth. These people came from Uganda, Kenya, Liberia, Haiti, the Philippines, Croatia, Russia, China, Korea, India—and the United States, of course—and I have never seen more impressive mutual respect, as they helped each other out and checked each other’s work. But for all their teamwork, this local gang could not have done their jobs without the huge background of contributions from others. I remember with gratitude my late friend and Tufts colleague, physicist Allan Cormack, who shared the Nobel Prize for his invention of the c-t scanner. Allan—you have posthumously saved yet another life, but who’s counting? The world is better for the work you did. Thank goodness. Then there is the whole system of medicine, both the science and the technology, without which the best-intentioned efforts of individuals would be roughly useless. So I am grateful to the editorial boards and referees, past and present, ofScience, Nature, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lancet, and all the other institutions of science and medicine that keep churning out improvements, detecting and correcting flaws.

Thor and Hephastus made the tools. Ganesha remembered all the complicated anatomy. Who to blame for the anaesthetics that don’t get a mention either (and I’m sure that without them, there would have been much screaming as the scalp flap was cut and even more as the skull was cut open) … well would that be Asclepius, or Bacchus?
Teamwork, guys and guyesses!

The prayers worked? Oh goody! Why would a benevolent g*d afflict her with a tumor in the first place? I never get that…praise some supernatural being for the cure (that scientists and doctors discovered/administered) but never a peep about how/why a cure was needed in the first place. So g*d never afflicts, only cures. So utterly dumb, but that’s the basis of faith- dumbness.

I suppose this means that the loved ones of all those that died that day of some medical complication will now know that God could have intervened to save their loved one but for whatever reason, decided not to.

RESULTS:
In the 2 groups uncertain about receiving intercessory prayer, complications occurred in 52% (315/604) of patients who received intercessory prayer versus 51% (304/597) of those who did not (relative risk 1.02, 95% CI 0.92-1.15). Complications occurred in 59% (352/601) of patients certain of receiving intercessory prayer compared with the 52% (315/604) of those uncertain of receiving intercessory prayer (relative risk 1.14, 95% CI 1.02-1.28). Major events and 30-day mortality were similar across the 3 groups.

CONCLUSIONS:
Intercessory prayer itself had no effect on complication-free recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with a higher incidence of complications.

I have recently been through a very serious illness (multiple cancers, which required seven weeks of intensive chemotherapy to treat, and I will at some point in the not oo distant future have to undergo an operation to remove to cause of the trouble) and I was careful to give full credit to the medical staff who treated me, and whose care and support was incredible. Thus I find it unconscionable that no credit is given to the medical staff in this case

Dennett’s piece is of course just to the point. The only thing I might add is that it is also important to allow people to make mistakes, so that we can learn from them; indeed, to celebrate mistakes and the way in which science provides opportunities to correct them.

All too often we hear about cutting-edge science, particularly medicine, without being informed about the risks, challenges or indeed the chances of success. I hope Ms Stafford has the opportunity to think, and maybe comment, again.

You’re in a car with your seriously injured child, and you have no phone.
To your left, one mile away, is a faith healer renowned for curing many people.
To your right, also a mile away, is a hospital.
Which way do you turn, left or right? And why?

Twelve years ago I joined the club (The Acoustic Neuroma Association), having been diagnosed with a fortunately small one.

The relevant thing is that AN patients always discuss which doctors they went to, and which are the best ones, and such. The forum for the group chatters away about it every day.

The doctors involved in Kelly Stafford’s case remain unmentioned, as far as I can tell. It may be a publicity issue. It would certainly be routine, though, to mention them at least anonymously, and thank them for doing a good job.

For those interested, here is the Wiki on VESTIBULAR SCWANNOMA [or acoustic neuroma] as Steve above says. It is a benign tumour around the main (vestibular) nerve leading from inner ear to brain. Branches of this nerve directly influence balance & hearing. Pressure from this growth can cause hearing loss, tinnitus, unsteadiness & sometimes even a loss of feeling in the side of the face. Surgery doesn’t necessarily remove the symptoms & she may well have to adjust her lifestyle accordingly. Her use of the phrase “new norm” suggests she knows that although it probably hasn’t sunken in & maybe more surgery will be required [I gather generally from reading around].

I can understand no names, but it’s peculiar that her sentiments/thanks are addressed solely towards the portion of her six digit Instagram following that prayed for her & her family. No request in passing to “give it up” for the neurosurgeon, surgical team, mri unit, hospital staff etc.

If she’s unhappy with the outcome in two years, will she be suing God?

Maybe we should cut this lady some slack. Less than a week before she sent this message she underwent twelve hours of brain surgery. Was she still on medication less than a week later? Was she thinking clearly? Did she even compose the greeting that went out?

I don’t think we should apply first principles in judging Instagram messages written less than a week after brain surgery.

If you have some kind of situation, say diabetes, then you take action to control the condition. Perhaps you change your diet, lose weight, etc., etc.

At some point, with some problems, you run out of ways to control the situation. If you go in for some extreme surgery, they basically put you in a coma and play around with your vital parts. Maybe you wake up, maybe you don’t. Maybe you are better, maybe its just phase one of your exit.

When in a situation of fear and anxiety, where you have exhausted all constructive means of control, people start bargaining with supernatural entities. They probably can’t help themselves. And if they survive, they feel gratitude to the supernatural entities. I’m not sure how you actually stop that practice.

I suppose as an atheist you should pray to the god of human ingenuity to create a new technology so that humans have a new, constructive means of controlling a previously uncontrollable condition.

I’m confused. I am quoting this from above:
Fortunately, as she wrote in her Instagram post below, the surgeon knew how to deal with the complication, as he’d written a paper about it.
Is this not giving credit to her surgeon??

Yes, that is very common here in SA too. They thank the Lord, and when you point out that you don’t even believe in God (something I rarely do), the default reaction is that he guided your hands nevertheless, unbeknownst to you.

Having had a heart valve repair ten years ago, I can fervently echo Dan Dennett’s paean of thanks. Without in any way wishing to dilute the thanks due to my medical team, most of whom I never saw (because I was out of it), I’d spread it wider and credit the whole of modern civilisation (right down to clean water, electric power and digital ‘devices’) which makes it possible for such operations to be performed. Fifty years ago I’d have been dead by now.

It always amazes me when “God” gets the credit for results that are entirely man made! Next time Stafford should try an experiment using two options:
1 – just prayer , or
2 – choose medical intervention, with or without prayer (preferably without).
I know which one I’d choose….

Why are we piling on the previously unoffending wife of an NFL quarterback, who has just come out from under a medical crisis, and done an utterly conventional thing — however much we disagree with it — for no apparent purpose other than to recycle obvious observations?

I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer three years’ ago.
I have undergone radiation, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy. Finally received the all-clear last week.
Thanks to medical science, my oncologist, and the professional staff at my treating hospital.
I cannot give any credit to external powers.